In my HR
shop, I like to work towards tracking the recruiting metrics that
matter – time to fill, cost per fill, misses (churn after 6 months of
hire), hiring manager scorecards, etc.
Oops! Forgot one – let's add "Percentage of Resumes Including a Photo that Destroys Candidate Prospects"…
Seriously. You would think that with 100,000 career advice sites out
there, no candidate would send a resume with a picture on it. You
would be wrong. Recruiters in the same shop as the HR Capitalist have
detected a noticeable up-tick in the number of resumes received with a
photo.
Candidly, it's never the beautiful people who use a photo on the
resume. Not that it matters. You could be in People Magazine's annual
"The World's 50 Most Beautiful People"
and it would still be a negative for you to attach your photo to your
resume. My mind automatically jumps the jugdment I can expect from the
candidate in question. Will you crash the rental car? Perhaps fail to
back up the server? The possibilities are endless once you have
determined it "a good idea" to send your photo on the resume. The only
thing that could make it more surreal is if you used a photo from "Glamour Shots" (my favorite – the black and white with you hanging your jacket over your shoulder with one thumb – sweeeeeet….)
Below is one we received this week. The name, photo, and some of
the non-critical info has been changed, but this "personal info"
section was the candidate's lead. Take a pass through and let me know
how many Title 7 identifiers you can find on this one.
A related question set…
I send in a relatively normal looking resume that has links on it to one or all of my professional blog, LinkedIn profile, and/or VisualCV. These are all going to have my picture on them.
Does this also create a problem? (Assuming all content is appropriate.) Is the problem big enough to outweigh the offer of additional info? Or does it just count as a next step, like calling someone in for an interview.
For the record, I have a business card I use at conventions and the like with my photo on it. I try to write notes on cards to remember people by, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten home from a show and the brain has just morphed all those faces into one big memory slush pile. Of course, the idea of a card is to be remembered… which is not the same idea behind a resume.
I have no problem with resumes with pictures as long as the pictures are respect-worthy enough. Who’s that actor again on that resume?
A bit of a US centric view, I think. In other countries/cultures a current photo and personal data are an absolute must for a resume.
The author of this article fails to adequately convey good reasons for not including a photo, other than personal bias. The author feels it is poor judgment to include one, and thus assumes the candidate must also have poor judgment in other areas too. I must ask myself… how did the author come to this conclusion?
Other than making sure you choose a good photo, (or none at all if you can’t find a good one), then why is it a bad idea? More details supporting your argument please.
In my personal point of view, this is just a personal opinion holding no real arguments. In some industries (ex. client relations) and regions (European countries) it really is important to include a picture – it may be unfair, but people are always judged by their looks. I really thing this issue depends on many variables and such generalizations are inappropriate.
I would like to have seen more comment from Chris on why he thinks it is a bad idea to include a photo in a resume.
I would tend to agree though…I believe we tend to jump to conclusions and judge by the cover, plus some people are just not photogenic!
A candidate has a better chance of making a good impression in person, in 3D. People who shouldn’t could get rejected because of a poor photo.
Beth’s comment is interesting…I was recently wondering if employers have started looking up potential candidates’ profiles in Facebook and/or tweets in Twitter?
Would love some feedback on that.
This IMO is a completely outdated concept. Honestly nearly everyone these days recommends that you have an online profile, and /or resume (LinkedIn VisualCV etc.)Mostly they recommend that you have a picutre included in the online profile (I’ve certainly never seen anyone suggest that you NOT have a picture in the online profile) FURTHERMORE, most experts agree that you should include the links to your online profiles in your resume. So I fail to see how the arguement of not including a picture in the resume stands up.
But, to be sure, the picture you’ve presented in this article show the danger of including a picture in any of your resumes or online profiles. As much care should be taken with the choice of pictures as with the choice of words on the resume.
I couldn’t agree with Kris more, just don’t do it. Let me take a crack at the Title 7 identifiers he asked for:
Photo
Civil Status
Age & Birthdate
Birthplace
Dependents
Description of physical characteristics – height/weight/eye & hair color
Hobbies (none are employment related)
Organization (religious affiliation & non-skill related)
Did I miss any?
At least on the corporate front, we do not want to see any info that could set us up for a fall. We don’t want to deal with it. We are very busy and we do not want to end up in court when we were just trying to do our job well. We also do not want the chance to have our own biases or those of hiring managers rear their ugly heads to disqualify a perfectly capable candidate.
That means photos, things candidates stick in the “hobbies” section like religious affiliated church activities, civil status, physical description, or anything else that points to something that could be fodder for a discrimination complaint.
Many Recruiters & Hiring Managers (and I’m raising my hand here)have have had the nauseating misadventure of an EEOC complaint filed against them. So we try to sanitize the process as much as possible to avoid knowing anything about candidates accept the experience, skills and talent they bring to the table. Our legal departments advise us on what NOT to write in interview notes for the same reasons because the time and cost associated with one of these complaints can be enormous.
I have worked in other countries and as Oliver pointed out this is a “US centric view”. I just listed the reasons why. We just love litigation in the US. With electronic profiles via Social Media in the mix, today’s Recruiter has to don virtual armor, have a crystal ball and wear those Wonder Woman bracelets to navigate the excess info candidates.
And if I had the pleasure of having you in my office you would see I keep a crystal ball on my desk to remind me that I cannot see through candidates or assume anything about them. But I can learn a heck of a lot about them through asking behavioral based questions….
Recruiters are clicking on those SM links and checking candidates out without doubt. I do it too. I recruit people through SM and in fact I am an advocate of it for many reasons.. But we don’t want those Title 7 details that could backfire on us in a document we have in a file cabinet or stored electronically.
Just imagine the nightmare Mrs. Candidate shares:
Look at that pic – oh, she’s overweight -perceived health risk, lazy, OMG.
Den mother to her 3 children’s’ scout group – Childcare issues waiting to happen, I can’t deal with this.
Volunteers at XYZ Religious Inst. – Yikes, I’m atheist and don’t like her already. If she starts preachin’ to me I’ll faint. She’s going to want all kinds of holidays off too.
Mrs. Candidate is toast………
Message: Keep your resume to professional norms for the country in which you are applying for employment. Because otherwise, you as a candidate could come across bias and never get an interview. And a smart Recruiter would just shred your resume anyway.
Hey Kris,
Guess I’m operating under the traditional mindset, and so believe that photos on resumes are unnecessary and sometimes bizarre. Aside from the unavoidable beauty contest – and let’s face it, we can’t help but judge the photo – it just doesn’t look right. Now oddly, I think pictures on bios, LinkedIn, Zoom Info, Facebook and other destination databases are appropriate, even on the occasional business card where we need to put a “face to the name.” Since most of the comments here are looking for an opinion about whether to include a photo or not, I’d say nine times out of ten, an employer is going to be Googling your name, or checking the online sites to see if you are listed – so they will get to your picture anyway. Therefore the message is to save your resume for business experiences, functional capabilities, and accomplishments…where you want employers/recruiters to focus!
In the United States is is customary that a photo does not appear on the resume.
The concept is that you are judged on your actions, skills and the resume is the initial presentation to the company. If you have spelling/grammar errors on your resume what good is it to see the person making them?
The current reality is that if the company is interested they will do a web search of the candidate. They will know what you look like and what you have written or posted. That photo of you downing a 24oz can of malt liquor on your blog might get you excluded quicker than your nice conservative resume photo.
Creative or other types of industries may have other requirements. Video portfolios and other demonstrations of talent might have other needs but generally not an identifiable image of the creator.
I did not know this aspect of job hunting in about other countries. I would question if in European a lot of good people are excluded from positions because of their photo and not because of their skills set.
I’m guessing the answer would be yes.
Glad to see I’m not completely isolated in the recruiting world, although I do spend a lot of time in a converted garage/my office… 800-1000 words on a page, 100,000 of these documents over 20+ years it all becomes a blur.
The scrolling, the incessant BOLDING, ITALIZING, and UNDELINING, it could drive the average “Recruiter” to drink. Well, not me. I want to see pictures. I want to her candidates talking. I want to work in the 21st century and twitter my way to fame and fortune.
If my client is not going to hire a 57 year old sales rep, there’s really not too much the EEOC can do… I’ll send the more “senior” candidate, the interview will go the standard 45 minutes, and the client will assume I missed all the “buzz words”.
High energy, excited, now savvy, able to relate to the younger consumer, you get the idea – well if you don’t you’re not being fair to your client, candidates, or yourself.
Rahim Balasubramanian is one of the most talented
Product Managers I ever placed, but without a video presentation, he would never have gotten the interview with the Tier II supplier he’s working for over the past three years. His name alone would’ve knocked him out of the interview chair.
Yes there are still corporate entities out there that are governed by the legal department, or in the case of many of the bailout companies, the accounting department; and they can’t get out of their own way when conducting a legitimate search.
If your client won’t look at a resume with a picture that’s their business. I sent out the best Operations Manager in automotive lore, and he went into BMW N.A., and wowed them with his knowledge of creating an efficient distribution network, and an international warehouse operation without so much as a screw out of place. But alas, he had a beard that would’ve qualified him to be a member of the rock band ZZ Top. Yeah I should’ve known that, but coming from his current position with FIAT, I wrongly assumed he fit into a reasonable corporate motif. Ken went back to Italy, and I went back to recruiting for a position I thought I had filled.
A picture equals a thousand words, and the spoken presentation will soon dominate resume presentation. Get on board or the train’s going to run you over.
Here’s my version
http://www.allowmetointroducemyself.com/res-JonathanGoldberg.htm
Pictures are dumb.
Unless you want them to rule you out on the way you look before they actually get to see you.
I would absolutly never invite anyone who sends me a resumee without a picture.
This might be ok in theUSs but HR seems to work a bit differently in the rest of the world.
So what about this article?
http://www.hrcapitalist.com/2009/04/the-visual-cv-enough-to-make-me-reconsider-pictures-on-resumes.html
Yep, I agree. Just not much good that can come from the photo on the resume scenario.
Besides, my guess is that the recruiter (as soon as resume is in hand), is going straight to LinkedIn (et al) to see if a picture exists.
‘Course, nobody will admit to it, but hey….
this is a lively conversation!
@beth – i’d say that your blog, LinkedIn, VisualCV – these are all “social” networks/social media tools so most would say a picture is necessary for branding yourself… interesting dichotomy given most in the US would say no to a picture on your resume. it makes me wonder simply the concept of a traditional resume will change in the future…
Personally, in the US I feel it’s best to leave pictures OUT of a resume. We look at resumes to see your skills and experience only. What you look like isn’t important.
Thanks for posting!
- Jessica M
Akken staffing software and recruiting software
Oh, the good ‘ol pictures on a resume. I’ve shared great laughs with Hiring Managers before on resume pictures. I could really care less if you include a picture, but ‘seller beware’… because it will be judged one way or another. Not too long ago, we were searching for a Marketing Mgr and a great lookin’ guy sent in his resume w/ a picture. Other than the fact he was well-qualified, the various HM’s basically replied with “No Way” to the abercrombie look-alike.